"Romance of a Harem
Translated by Clarence Forestier-Walker
Greening & Co., Ltd., London
20 Cecil Court, Charing Cross
1904
Preface to Second Edition
In answer to innumerable letters from known and unknown correspondence, as to how much of "The Romance of a Harem" is true; it has been thought advisable by the publishers (Messrs Greening) that in the issue of this, the second edition, I should acknowledge that it is an absolutely true story.
The authoress's father (when the writer was a small child) was sent by the French Government on a mission to the Sultan, who received him and his family on terms of the greatest intimacy, and who had a profound respect for the distinguished French gentleman.
It was with her father and mother that the authoress learnt the Turkish language, and visited during her youth, before marriage, all the leading Turkish families, and thus gained what is so rare among Europeans, an intimate knowledge of the little-known private life of great harems.
This true story, as given to the public, was known and approved of by the children of Prince Halim, who plays so large a part in the romance.
It was on reading this story, and its successor, "La Courtisane de la Montagne," * in the original! that His Majesty, the present Sultan, issued an irade, forbidding the employment of European governesses in Turkish harems.
Clarence Forestier-Walker
* English Edition entitled "The Woman of the Hill."
Romance of a Harem
Chapter I
For many a long year I lived in a harem, and of that time I have the sweetest remembrances. Comparisons that I have been able to make since the chances of fortune led me to share the life of European women, only strengthen the tender melancholy of those souvenirs.
The natural sentiments of women - affection, devotion, and the decency of life - become strongly developed in the warm and favourable atmosphere of a harem. What a peaceful charm! What a profound calm there is in those vast rooms half-filled with shadow!
Sitting on her cushions, with her bare feet crossed beneath her, she sees through the carved grating the boats that glide past on the Bosphorus. She slowly smokes a scented cigarette, and sips languidly her coffee from a tiny cup.
On her white brow, which no care wrinkles, the beautiful Circassian arranges her sequins, and sings to herself in a minor key; she thinks only how to preserve her beauty, and rests after the complicated soins of the bath, and slowly tastes the joy of pleasing; she plays with the children, and to amuse herself has a thousand puerile incidents which fill the hours. I have known all that; but if I grew up in the peace of the harem, loved and respected, I also have seen only too closely the dramas of oriental politics and peaceful existence of the sultanas and odalisques upset by the so-called progress of European morals. The death of the last of the real great Mussulmen - the man to whom I owed the most profound respect, has delivered me from the promise I gave that I would never write for publication during his life-time, and I shall be glad if I can show how false are many of the ideas of life in a harem.
Nearly always the repose and dignity of the harem is broken by the English or French governess, whom it is the fashion to employ to initiate the young Turkish girls into the beauties of European education. Happily the influence of the Miss or Madame or Mademoiselle is of an ephemeral duration. These governesses shock the oriental women who have regard for their proper dignity, and seldom succeed in inoculating them with their ideas. They come from Paris, or more often from Marseilles. Their doubtful morality has generally left them little chance of honest employment in their own country. I remember one of them whose influence was fatal to a charming young woman. This Mademoiselle had originally been a singer in a cafe'-concert, and being furnished with a letter from a celebrated Armenian archbishop, easily installed herself in the house of this young married lady, inducing her to commit a thousand foolish actions, which ultimately forced the husband, who was aide-de-camp to His Majesty, to get a divorce.
Amongst all these governesses in search of adventures, I must mention one exception in favour of Miss Albert, whom I knew during my childhood, and who brought up the daughters of the Egyptian Prince M...... F........ . She had been recommended to His Highness by a member of the English royal family. She left behind her a reputation for European honesty, and was much loved and respected. Therefore let us put in upon record that there was once a respectable European governess in Turkey - and she was English. Nevertheless, this education only brought disorder in the ideas of the young Turkish women. The Princesses - the pupils of Miss Albert - were far from happy. One of them, the widow of the famous K....... Pacha, celebrated in Paris under the Second Empire, gravely compromised herself with an immensely rich Jew; she was obliged to leave Constantinople for Cairo, where, since the occupation, she has laden the English with her favours, though she is over fifty years of age.
For the matter of that, Europeans seem very much to appreciate the beauties of other days.
One - a rich and amiable diplomat of a little country in the north - recently eloped with a much compromised and somewhat matured beauty, which caused the Khedive to say: " Thank Heaven! When our foolish women become old, some European is always ready to relieve us of them."
All this is very unfortunate, but difficult to avoid, and the rich harems will for a long time be given up to this false education, the Turks being in an impossible position for obtaining true knowledge about the governesses that are sent to them.
It is a mistake to believe in the possibility of any real education being given to the oriental women - a mistake spread by the few European women who are occasionally admitted for an hour or two into the harems. They have never really understood the true character of the family, or of Turkish households. Mademoiselle introduced doubtful novels or undertook the delivery of billets doux to the attachés at the embassies, which without her assistance were entirely deprived of oriental distraction.
The wise man understands that there is little real love outside the harem, and is afraid of the unknown. He has married a Circassian slave, beautiful and healthy; with her he has the odalisques, and if he chooses a slave of the harem who does not come under the title of odalisque, he would be obliged to instal her in a house apart - which would mean that the peace of the household would be compromised, and his own repose lost. Also the guardianship of the harems is wonderfully well carried out, and the virtue of a young woman is safer there than in any other form of life.
Then all the children are legitimate, and one of the most touching things in harem life is the love that all the women bear for the children of the master, even if they were born of a negress. As to the Miss or the Mademoiselle, I defy her to seduce the master or the son of the house."
